poems

”Goldengrove Unleaving”

Posted on by rita kowats 

Spring and Fall 
BY GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS

to a young child

Márgarét, áre you gríeving
Over Goldengrove unleaving?
Leáves like the things of man, you
With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?
Ah! ás the heart grows older
It will come to such sights colder
By and by, nor spare a sigh
Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;
And yet you wíll weep and know why.
Now no matter, child, the name:
Sórrow’s spríngs áre the same.
Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed
What heart heard of, ghost guessed:
It ís the blight man was born for,
It is Margaret you mourn for.

This poem has echoed in the recesses of my soul since 1978, so I resurrect it this autumn as I do every year. In October forty-five years ago while on retreat, Hopkins’ masterpiece brought me face to face with the truth that I had rejected the child I had been because I was ashamed of her. That was a valuable intellectual conversion. Three years later a spirit-inspired experience moved it out of my head into my whole being. I was led in meditation to enter my sacred space, lie down on the floor before the altar, and in a fetal position, wrap my arms around my body, gently rocking that little girl. Sobbing with years of pent up shame, I told her I loved her and would never leave her again. No more regret for “goldengrove unleaving.”

I don’t mourn for Margaret. I celebrate her courage and tenacity, she who made it out. And on the days when old age is not daunting, I am glad for the inevitable unleaving, the stripping down day by day that leads to authentic life.

My prayers are with you too in all of the unleaving that comes your way today.

Life In Three Acts

Posted on by rita kowats 

 I. Light Bearing

Souls are stars conceived by light,
Blazing, bright-shining beacons
Casting assurance on pilgrim paths.

Bear the light- don’t covet it.
Light expansive,
Light exhaustive.

II. Light Lacking

…can become light birthing
When we befriend the dark.
Raise your arms in protest but cradle 
the shadow created by despair.

Call it by name and reignite it
With your love.

III. Light Birthing

Like the phoenix
We rise and rise again 
faithful sentries sensing,waiting
For Time to strike the match.

Don’t miss it.

C. Rita H Kowats 7/22/2023


Photo Credit

SoulCards” by Deborah Koff-Chapin. The technique Deborah has created is called “touch drawing.” The cards come in two decks of 60 images and can be used alone or with others as reflection tools. They have enriched my meditation for years and have helped those I companion with. www.soulcards.com

Used with permission from the artist.

In This Moment

Posted on by rita kowats

As so many of you throughout the world endure such disastrous weather conditions, I hold you in presence and send you spiritual energy for coping and surviving. May you experience relief soon.

This morning a brief episode of Krista Tippet’s On Being downloaded and feeling bereft of her once frequent offerings, I jumped on it immediately. This is what she offers us today:

What if the future is soft and revolution is so kind that there is no end to us in sight.

Whole cities breathe and bad luck is bested by a promise to the leaves.

To withstand your own end is difficult.

The future frolics about, promised to no one, as is her right.

Rage against injustice makes the voice grow harsher yet.

If the future leaves without us, the silence that will follow will be an unspeakable nothing.

What if we convince her to stay?

How rare and beautiful it is that we exist.

What if we stun existence one more time?

When I wake up, get out of bed, my seven year old cousin

with her ruptured belly tags along.

Then follows my grandmother, aunts, my other cousins
and the violent shape of their drinking water.

The earth remembers everything,
our bodies are the color of the earth and we
are nobodies.

Been born from so many apocalypses, what's one more?

Love is still the only revenge. It grows each time the earth is set on fire.

But for what it’s worth, I’d do this again.
Gamble on humanity one hundred times over

Commit to life unto life, as the trees fall and take us with them.

I’d follow love into extinction.

by Ayisha Siddiqa

Ayisha Siddiqa is a 24-year-old Pakistani-American climate justice and human rights advocate from Coney Island, New York City. She is the co-founder of Fossil Free University and PollutersOut!  She calls herself a storyteller and uses poetry as a form of protest. She read one of her poems about climate justice at COP27 and she was one of TIME’s Women of the Year in 2023. Find her on Instagram. (https://www.theecojusticeproject.com/submissions/all-ive-got-is-another-love-poem)

photo credits: pexels.com

“Be Still and Know That I Am God”Ps. 46:10

Posted on by rita kowats
Pexels.com


The Messenger hovers before a vivid red bulb
On the outdoor Christmas tree,
Then rests for a nano second
On the evergreen branch,
Tiny heart rat-a-tat-tatting 
An innate soul-tune.
Recharged and ready 
She flies 
And hovers 
And rests.

fly  
hover 
rest

Are you listening, Sister Soul?



Rita Hemmer Kowats
June 18, 2023













			

	
	



					
						



	
	

		
Stay With Me, Remain With Me Here

				

			Posted on  by rita kowats		

			
	


		

		















The chant, “Bleibet hier, Stay With Me,” has been a haunting backdrop for me this week. Serious illness and painful life transitions in my faith community and family have called me to hold vigil with those whom I love. With Marge Piercy in her poem, “Gracious Goodness” I ask, “Why is there nothing/I have ever done with anybody/that seems to me so obviously right” than to hold vigil with others? Stay with me. Remain here with me. Watch and pray. Watch and pray.





And now my sister-in-law is finally at the end of her agonizing journey through Alzheimer’s. She is in hospice at a memory care facility three short miles from me. Stay with me, remain here with me. My vigil candle ablaze, I look toward her care unit and send light. An adaptation of the Loving Kindness prayer finds its way to Phyllis on each breath I send:





May you be safe from harm.
May you be free from fear.
May you be released from pain.
May you pass into light in peace.
I love you, Phyllis.
May I let you go with joy.

There is solace for me in this commingling of spirits. 



			

	
	



					
						



	
	

		
A Plea

				

			Posted on  by rita kowats		

			
	


		

		


https://www.pexels.com/@lara-jameson/




A Plea 

Some struggle to restrain the storm 
that broods in every soul-cell.
They struggle to quell the looming eruption
Or the gut-wrenching whimper that rumbles 
and hiccups on the crest of unstoppable sobs.
Their fear demands, “Just how supreme will this court get?”
Others teem with pent up joy released and celebrated.

I hear the preacher pray:

May  we respect one another.
May  we listen deeply.
May  we refuse violence of word and body.

Respect
Listen 
Refuse.

c. Rita H Kowats
June 26, 2022







			

	
	



					
						



	
	

		
Release The Talking Heads

				

			Posted on  by rita kowats		

			
	


		

		







Nino Bughadze pexels.com




We are wrapped 
In Rapid-fire thoughts
Ejected with rapid-fire words.

We leave no wiggle room for being,
From whence comes truth.
(Even Molly of Denali’s mom
Tells her to slooooooow down.)

Spirit,
Where are you?
Have we wound you round so tightly
That we’ve stifled your every nudge
Nestled in the recesses of our souls?

Unbind us.
Peel off this tyranny of constant chatter
And take us home to that spacious center
Where you frolic with abandon.
Release our Talking Heads.

c. Rita Hemmer Kowats 
June 11, 2022



			

	
	



					
						



	
	

		
“And Jesus Wept”

				

			Posted on  by rita kowats		

			
	


		

		






My friend Jim wrote this poem in 1987 to tell the story of that year’s Gay Pride Parade in NYC. He was an extroverted mystic, fitting no one’s mold. Jim lived enough years after that to see some progress toward justice, but this was a bleak time. May our tears be for joy this year





Corpus Christi: New York "87"

Sunny Sunday in late June.
Thousands march.
Joyous and free.
I joined.

Searchers and seekers
Walking with dignity and pride.
Approaching the Cathedral:
A contradiction!

Blue barricades, blue flashing lights
On cop cars and paddy wagons;
Blue shirted police arm to arm
Protecting the Cathedral.

A Crucifixion?
The front steps blocked by
A blue Army in blue berets
(looking psychotic)
Shaking rosaries, thumping Bibles
Yelling “Sinners Sinners” as we passed by.

“Shame, shame, shame,” we murmured
Softly in reply.
I looked for Jesus beyond the barricades.
Not there!
“Thank God,” I said.

At 3 o’clock the parade stopped.
Silence
A city fell silent.
Bells tolled.

From the Village up Fifth Avenue.
Coming closer and closer
Passing over us
Until the whole sky was filled with
Colored balloons.

My heart burned within,
I remembered all who died of AIDS.
Gazing at the heavens,
I watched a great loving God
Gather balloons, holding them high
In God’s bright blue sky
Above the blue baracades, blue lights
Blue armies & blue shirted cops.

My God gathered these children,
Sons & daughters into a peace-filled
Eternal embrace.

I wept.
Turning, I saw two older women,
Pioneers and witnesses of the movement,
Weeping and holding each other as they
Too gazed upward.

EASTER and ASCENSION.
CHRIST HAD COME AGAIN.  GLORY TO GOD!
Peace to you and me!

James L. Becker
1987












			

	
	



					
						



	
	

		
Beauty Cannot Be Banned

				

			Posted on  by rita kowats		

			
	


		

		


BBC Ukrainecast-  graffiti left in Bucha by Russian soldiers





Katarzyna Modrzejewska Pexels.com









Beauty Rises

Beauty rises.
No matter what.

It rises from rich loam
and from tomes teeming
with dreaming.

A sunflower in Donetsk region
lifts its face, offering seeds 
to a waiting lark.
One errant seed clinging to a claw
drops into the rubble 
of the besieged city.

The seed pushes up 
through a crack in the rubble.

Beauty rises.
No matter what.

c. Rita Hemmer Kowats 
June 2, 2022





			

	
	



					
						



	
	

		
Spiritual Support

				

			Posted on  by rita kowats		

			
	


		

		












Today the proverbial last straw is falling on my back and Ive spent a long while staring into space. The way out stretches into two forks on the road to peace: a new version of something I wrote earlier on these pages, and a healing mantra which I’ve prayed a good part of this day.  I hope that one of them speaks to you and offers healing.










Earlier 

Before we escape into more analysis…
This time let us sit in silence together 
And feel our common suffering to the depths 
Until we know, really know, 
The place to which we have come. 

Then let us stand together and act.

Mantra

Breathing in,   I honor this moment.
Breathing out, I am at peace.

Breathing in,   I step into suffering.
Breathing out, I release expectation.

Breathing in,    I step into grief.
Breathing out,  I release expectation.

Breathing in,     I know I am loved.
Breathing out,   I release doubt.

Breathing in,     I honor this moment.
Breathing out.  Breathing in.
I honor this moment.